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gollum123 writes "The BBC news magazine is running a compilation of the interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts that we did not know last year, but now know. some examples — There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts. Urban birds have developed a short, fast 'rap style' of singing, different from their rural counterparts. The lion costume in the film 'Wizard of Oz' was made from real lions. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. The egg came first."

Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.

So how much unharmful methane does it give off? Do you know that you breathe out deadly carbon dioxide? That the earth is infested with deadly dihydrogen monoxide? That 40% of all sick days are taken monday and friday?

Happy cows don't really come from California as the commercial states, overheated, dead cows come from California. Good thing we learned that last summer though so they can stop running that stupid ad (I'm from Wisconsin by the way)

Not to mention that Wisconsin makes better cheese. We care about our curds, man!;-)

Generally, Yes you'd measure it at 1atm. I'm actually surprised it isn't more than 400L. Note that one mole (6.0223x10^23 molecules, or atoms) of ideal gas (almost all normally encountered gases are close enough to be considered ideal) occupies 22.4L at 1atm. Noting that 1 mole of substance has a mass equal to the substance'as molecular weight in grams, which is 16g/mol for methane. That means that a Cow produces on average about 285 grams of methane per day. Which isn't all that much really.

Taking this further, by rough guesstimate, you'd need around 4000 grams of methane to substitute for a gallon of gas (This one is pretty rough, I'm using 4L is approximately 1 gallon, and ignoring that methane is significantly less dense than water, on the other hand, methane is also less energy dense than octane, so there you go), giving about 2 cow-weeks to produce the equivalent of a gallon of gas (assuming no loses). On the basis of this, I'd say you should take suggestions to run your car on cow methane with a huge grain of salt.

But why does the container even matter? Anyone familiar with metric units knows how much a litre is, and has a good visual picture of how much space it takes up. So why not just say 400 litres? If people need to visialize it in "bottles" or hogsheads, or whatever, they can easily see that 400 litres equals 400 litre bottles - or even better 40 10 litre containers, which are pretty common for holding water. Or 100 4 litre wine casks.

So.. id need around 4kg of methane to substitute a gallon of gas (i'm realizing this is a big guesstimate), which takes about 2 weeks to create. How long did it take to make that gallon of gas, a few hundred millions of years or so? I'm not really trying to convince anyone that methane is the way to go, but using a figure of time to show how long it takes to create a type of fuel doesn't really work here. Of course you have the fact that petroleum is releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, and that CO2 has be

Though the 666 term of 'Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs' is true, in 2005, "a fragment of papyrus was revealed, containing the earliest known version of that part of the Book of Revelation discussing the Number of the Beast. It gave the number as 616, suggesting that this may have been the original."

As we know,There are known knowns.There are things we know we know.We also knowThere are known unknowns.That is to sayWe know there are some thingsWe do not know.But there are also unknown unknowns,The ones we don't knowWe don't know.

*I* find it funny\ironic\interesting because, when Rummy was just rooting around trying to find a way to dodge a reporter's question, he accidentally made a profoundly poetic, even zen, philosophical statement. When properly spaced out like parent did, I truly believe that could stand alongside the great insights of the great writers of the world. In terms of form, composition, and truth, it is nearly perfect.

Which means just about the LAST place you'd expect it to come from is the mouth of the man whose job otherwise was to blow up as much of the known world as he could.

And that's what makes it funny.

And just for the record, the A.C. parent posted no commentary. Just the moment of zen. And others modded it as funny (and insightful!). Why did you automatically assume he was ridiculing it?

In the old days, people would scream "the Devil!" when they pronounced the number 666. These days we have a long word to wrap our tongues around to pronounce the number 666. I guess Word Nazis rule hell.

They say that last year we didn't know that... Panspermia is the theory that life came from other planets???

I scanned down the list for a bit, but when I saw that, I just had to reread it in surprise, then close that browser tab. I knew that a long, long time ago, as did a lot of other science or science-fiction fans. The wikipedia article on panspermia cites its usage as early as 2000.

The list is full of things like these. Its not really a list of discovery but of off-beat and interesting news. Panspeemia is an old idea, usually held up by discoving tough bacteria that might survive and interstellar trip on an asteroid, fossils, and now this 'red rain.' They also didnt just discover how to say 666 fear in greek, etc.

These are the POTUS who died in office, with the years of their last election and dates of death:

William Henry Harrison --- elected 1840, died April 4, 1841 at Washington, D.C.Zachary Taylor --- elected 1848, died July 9, 1850 at Washington, D.C.Abraham Lincoln --- elected 1864, died April 15, 1865 at Washington, D.C.James Garfield --- elected 1880, died September 19, 1881 at Elberon, New JerseyWilliam McKinley --- elected 1900, died September 14, 1901 at Buffalo, New YorkWarren G. Harding --- elected 1920, died August 2, 1923 San Francisco, CaliforniaFranklin D. Roosevelt --- elected 1944, died April 12, 1945 at Warm Springs, GeorgiaJohn F. Kennedy --- elected 1960, died November 22, 1963 at Dallas, Texas

Of 42 people who were elected, 8 died in office, almost one in five...

No, the original article is correct. Average fatality rate is just under 10%.Actually, prior to commercialization of Everest around 1990, the fatality rate was an unbelievable 37%.

But since about 1990, various commercial outfits have started taking paying climbers to the Everest summit. Everest is now a multi million dollar business! Climbers are supported by experienced sherpas, and the various expeditions have fixed permanent ropes and ladders up on the Everest. That's 1) reduced fatalities and 2) allowed

At least until recently, there was a high rate of expeditions that had to turn back due to weather or other issues, and everybody made it back okay. So it could be accurate that a climber has a 2% chance of dying, a 20% chance of making it to the summit, and a 78% chance of being turned back by conditions, which would fit both sets of statistics. I haven't reanalyzed the statistics from that paper (and note that the 1 in 10 is only for spring), but it's not too far off. And an error of 25% is surprisingly l

True, although you could say that for most tools. How often do most people use a hand saw or a hammer? Probably not very often. But when you need one, you need one; a lot of special-purpose tools are worth their purchase price the first time you have to use one. That goes for both the ones in the basement/garage, and in the kitchen.

Although you're right about medium-to-large appliances; they're like having a table saw or a drill press that you never use.

Ok some of these are really dumb but some of them are actually quite interesting.For one I didn't realize that the fatality rate on Everest was so high, that's pretty scarey. I guess there goes my Everest attempt, my wife was never in favor of it anyway.

I was thinking about it the other night and I had an idea, they need to put a fire escape type of tube on Everest, the kind you see installed on some high rises. Just a super long one on Everest, that way if someone is having a problem just pop them into t

Reducing the risk would attract more climbers, in spite of the fact that Everest is over-crowded now as it is. (Example: there have been instances of twenty or more climbers in a queue, waiting to summit!) It's "bad enough" that climbers use oxygen, modern gear, and an over reliance on porters, etc. to summit.Our so-called modern society is overwrought with OSHA-, FDA-, EPA-, NTSB- (and etc.) mandated warning labels and devices, intended to protect us from ourselves.

Dear god that's just stupid - It's got absolutely nothing to do with rapping or urbanisation, just communication. The more I see of science reporting, the more depressed I get (hence I'm trying to do it better myself).

The original report said that the urban birds have shorter songs with an upshift in frequency, all the better to compete with traffic noise. You can read a more sciency report on it at Science Daily [sciencedaily.com]. The paper's abstract:

Worldwide urbanization and the ongoing rise of urban noise levels form a major threat to living conditions in and around cities. Urban environments typically homogenize animal communities, and this results, for example, in the same few bird species' being found everywhere. Insight into the behavioral strategies of the urban survivors may explain the sensitivity of other species to urban selection pressures. Here, we show that songs that are important to mate attraction and territory defense have significantly diverged in great tits (Parus major), a very successful urban species. Urban songs were shorter and sung faster than songs in forests, and often concerned atypical song types. Furthermore, we found consistently higher minimum frequencies in ten out of ten city-forest comparisons from London to Prague and from Amsterdam to Paris. Anthropogenic noise is most likely a dominant factor driving these dramatic changes. These data provide the most consistent evidence supporting the acoustic-adaptation hypothesis since it was postulated in the early seventies. At the same time, they reveal a behavioral plasticity that may be key to urban success and the lack of which may explain detrimental effects on bird communities that live in noisy urbanized areas or along highways.

Sure, I may be being a little bit uh, anal here, but a glib report along the lines of "it's like a rap song" just trivialises and dumbs down the research which is actually quite neat: these birds have adjusted their songs to compete with the other noises in their environment, showing a high level of behavioral plasticity.

Pretty much, yes. It has a "sharp" style, and words are pronounced much more quickly than in rock, folk, opera - in fact, it is sung more quickly than just about any genre I can think of. And while rap is known for deep basslines, the vocals are higher pitched than other genres, both to distinguish them from the bass, and as a side-effect of the quicker pace. Of course, rap varies, and some rappers use a deep voice, but the majority of it is higher-pitched than equivalent songs in other genres like rock.

Sure, I may be being a little bit uh, anal here, but a glib report along the lines of "it's like a rap song" just trivialises and dumbs down the research which is actually quite neat: these birds have adjusted their songs to compete with the other noises in their environment, showing a high level of behavioral plasticity.

Ok, point taken, and I shouldn't have used "urbanisation" in my first post - must have been lack of coffee, I was meaning something along the lines of "the increased urbanisation of modern human societies" (but hey, post hoc redefinition is cheating). It *is* urbanisation. However, rap music is not the only genre with those characteristics, you'll find most, if not all, of these aspects in punk and (heavy) metal music.I was more vexed with the hinting ( & I've seen this in a few news articles on this st

This isn't "100 things no-one knew last year", it's "100 things we didn't know last year". The "we" doesn't refer to the human race, it refers at the very most to "the average person in the street", and quite possibly only to the person(s) who pick the things that go in the articles.

This isn't meant to be a list of 100 new discoveries, so can everyone stop commenting on it as though it is?

6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman had trained as an opera singer.Because it was a non-story? Or did people really care?7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.I'm assuming they knew this when they made it.9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.Maybe scientists didn't know this, but tall men have probably known it for a while.11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.An infestation of inaccurate headlines is called ridiculosis.15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.I'm guessing someone figured that out three years ago when he surpassed George Marshall as the oldest.17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.Does that even warrant a comment?20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.Even assuming "things we forgot" counts as things we didn't know, that brothel was discovered in 1862 [scotsman.com].24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.Only 1/3?28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.If you count the crashes that don't involve falling out of the sky. Anyway, the story appeared on CNN in 2005 [cnn.com], and the report is from 2000.32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.This is from 2003 [archive.org]..35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.Someone just finally got around to opening the very first UK phone directory?37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centreYou mean they test materials now?41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.Insert prior evidence here [gbstamps.com].42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironov2004 [wikipedia.org].48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles2001 [archive.org]49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes1978 [imdb.com]50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK.Didn't know, or didn't care to know?

Let me be the first to make the obligatory comment about how that sound you just heard was a joke flying over your head.

Let me be the first to inform you that I did get the joke, which is why I said "Yes, but" instead of "No, you're wrong". I was changing the subject from a joke to a slightly more literally serious discussion of evolution. Perhaps I should have emphasized the word "first".